Inquiry Project Entrance Slip

1) Is there a better way for teachers to assess students to help them feel more of a progression experience in classes, rather than an experience where they feel like if they perform poorly once then the grades are lost forever.

Current assessment methods have not been updated yet society has changed its standards in workplace ethic, performance, and as a social environment. Societal values have changed, yet the way students are accessed have not changed. I think this is a project that can really change the way I view my classroom. It would be ideal to have students not have to feel dread entering my classroom environment the day after an exam.

2) Before I would like to investigate about what different methods of grading, I would like to reiterate some points from my last blog. Academic performance is usually what is measured and what students get anxiety from. This percentage grade is vague and inaccurate as it cannot separate two students with the same/similar grades. There is evidence that a students culture can even effect their grade in class more so than what the grades mean, so really it depends what a teacher wants the grade to mean. So I would like to propose different ways, or maybe suggest a progression kind of grading system. For now, I will look into cooperative learning strategies as cooperative learning is more commonly done in practice during a persons career. Different learning strategies require different grading methods, so I would like to begin there.

A) Team based assessment, iRAT and TRAT: These kinds of quizzing methods still have a large independent section to them. I believe the time between the iRAT and TRAT is where a lot of learning to occur. There are some pros and cons, for example some students forfeiting their view just because someone told them they were sure about one of the answers when really they could be correct.

B) I would like to read more into indigenous learning styles. As Moshie Renert stated in a previous paper, there is such a thing as number sense. Having a gauge of the theoretical allows us physicists to look an our numerical answers and think "this answer sounds reasonable". There are many indigenous learning styles, so I believe there must be a different method of evaluation. It is more framed by a community based participation learning experience. This could harbor a physics classroom with more hands on, when appropriate, experience.

C) Learning by teaching. I am curious if there is a way that a teacher could evaluate classrooms by how well a student can explain or analyze a problem and teach it to their classmates. This could also be similar to a think, pair, share and how well students could teach a problem they completed. Marina introduced to us the idea of  a "Lesson Play", which was a scene that is written by us, the teachers, about how students may approach a problem. If students can explain how a problem can be interpreted incorrectly, then they could have a better understanding then just being able to do the problem. To be able to explain in different angles how problems or theories can be misinterpreted is challenging as it promotes to think outside the box of their regular thinking. If students could be in groups and write different ways they misinterpreted the problem and share how it could be interpreted this way and why it is incorrect, it would be a good way to reflect on themselves and their classmates thought processes.